Where I grew up, some folks would pronounce the title of a married woman as "miz-riz" with more or less equal stress. "Are you in Mizriz Smith's class?"

Not everybody did, but some folks. I tried to argue another kid out of her pronunciation, and she pointed out that their was an "r" in Mrs. Of course, it should be pronounced! I just couldn't even argue with that.

I am interested in specific places (cities, parts of states) that people have heard this pronunciation from, say, more than one person. I have a hypothesis, and I want to see how it holds up.

I grew up in southern California and never heard Mrs. pronounced "miz-riz" until I moved to Georgia. I hear it used mostly by (for lack of a better term) more educated people, including one english teacher I had in college. At first I thought she just a hard time pronouncing it the proper way. Then I heard someone else say it the same way. The next time you try arguing it with someone and they point out there is an "r" in the word and one should pronounce it that way, just tell them there are no vowels in the spelling of the word either so why are they pronouncing it with an "I"?(for the sake of argument) The American Heritage Dictionary reads it should be pronounced "mĭs'ĭz". No "R" sound in it.

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

Huny wrote:The next time you try arguing it with someone and they point out there is an "r" in the word and one should pronounce it that way, just tell them there are no vowels in the spelling of the word either so why are they pronouncing it with an "I"?(for the sake of argument) The American Heritage Dictionary reads it should be pronounced "mĭs'ĭz". No "R" sound in it.

Actually there is an R in the original word it's an abbreviation for: etymology: abbreviation of mistress (-Merriam-Webster). Used in just the right circumstance, that could reroute some conversations...

Beckee Lynn (welcome a-board!), maybe your hypothesis needs to know whether any of the miz-rizzers are aware of that derivation. I've never heard anyone insert the R (without the tress of it), in the South or elsewhere, but 'miz-riz' does come out purty close to the root. Accident, or coincidence?

Here is a wonderful example of how accents (dialects) can impact the dominant dialect (often called the "standard" language). Since Mrs. is the abbreviation of mistress, the correct pronunciation should be "mistress". However, because this word was reduced to missus dialectally, Mrs.--even in the standard dictionaries--now is the abbreviation of "missus", an otherwise nonexistent word.

This is why the rise of yall as a pronoun, not noun phrase, is so interesting. It is spreading across the US and stands a good chance of filling that important gap in English, the absence of a plural pronoun for you.

Hasn't dasn't been invoked some three times today? Bailey, BD and now Gail, of those that I saw...

{edit: oops, AAtime clock says Gail was first }

It looks like the Dr. replied to Perry's apostrophic inquiry in another thread -I had wondered what it was answering and more or less asked the same thing. Having read the linked article though, I noticed:

Some time ago, English distinguished between "thou (art)" and "you (are)." "Thou" was second person singular and "you" was second person plural. Somewhere in the shuffle of history that crucial distinction was lost.

-- but were not thou and you also the 'familiar' and 'formal' 2nd person singular, also fallen into disuse after 17th century? Was this then a package deal, losing both singular-familiar and 1st-person-plural distinctions? And why would our four bears have done that, since other Euro languages* did not?

Another funny thing happened in English. Although thou started its career as the familiar form, its extensive use in many English translations of the Bible has given it the connotation of being the formal form; especially as the King James version uses thou for both possible situations.

"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."Anonymous

You mean grizzly, right? Or if they've even been rejected by the four bears, perhaps gristly.

And who were the four bear's forebears?

The precursors to the group that became bears split off into the Amphicyonidae (Bear Dogs) and the Procyonidae (Raccon Family) groups, leaving the Cephalogale group. The Cephalogale group split into the Ursavus group and the group that would soon evolve into the sealions and walruses, some 30 million years ago.

Hmmm, this should greatly reassure those who want nothing to do with monkey's uncles.

it's all baby can stand that goldi locks the door on all his antecedants. But that was three not fore, what shall we say for fore bears, cinnamon, black,brown, kodiak? these before Papa, Mama, and Santa Maria? oops mixed my sillinesses.

mark

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...kb

My revelation on which was which between thou and you came upon reading the Bible in French where God was addressed as "tu" -up to then I'd presumed thou had been the English formal (on the assumption from reading the same in English that if you use the familiar for the Creator, who could rate the formal?).
Perry, wanna be a cub reporter (ursamthing like that) and post some Biblicals where Thou dost do double duty as both formal and familiar?